A conventional visceral fat assuming apparatus was designed to calculate the amount accumulated visceral fat of a human body on the basis of at least one of: pieces of information on the identification of the human body (including some indicators or indexes representing the features or attributes of the whole body or the shape and size of the whole body or selected parts of the body); pieces of information representing the body composition (including some indicators or indexes representing the intracorporal composition); and bioelectrical impedance appearing between two selected points on the human body, which bioimpedance can be determined in terms of the potential difference appearing between the two selected points when a given fixed electric current is made to flow from one to the other selected point on the body.
For example, the visceral fat meter of Patent Document 1 below is designed to calculate the visceral fat rate (corresponding to the “information on the amount accumulated visceral fat”, herein referred to as such) from the impedance determined with a string of electrodes arranged around the trunk (corresponding to the “bioelectrical impedance”, herein referred to as such) and the length of the abdominal circumference (corresponding to “information on the identification of the human body”, herein referred to as such).
For another example, the visceral fat meter of Patent Document 2 below is designed to calculate the area of the cross section of the abdominal visceral fat (corresponding to the information on the amount accumulated visceral fat) from: the WHR or waist-hip ratio entered (corresponding to the information on the identification of the human body); the WHR and the body fat rate entered (corresponding to the information representing the body composition); or the WHR entered and the bioimpedance determined (corresponding to the bioelectrical impedance).
The visceral fat meter of Patent Document 3 below is designed to calculate the visceral fat area (corresponding to the information on the amount accumulated visceral fat) from the abdominal circumference determined and the age entered (both corresponding to the information on the identification of the human body).
Patent Document 1: Patent Application Laid-Open No. H 11-123182;
Patent Document 2: WO01/078600 and
Patent Document 3: Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-125954